Taste
Sunday, October 07, 2007
With my home so near to motel country, these dens of debauchery natural, almost imperceptible elements of my landscape, I don’t usually hold much fascination for these places when I pass by them. The first of the two instances when I actually did find pure novelty in them was when I was around seven. I was dead curious as to what Victoria, the pale, oval-faced, hush-hush motel maven, finger forever pressed to invisible lips, was telling motorists to keep mum about, being that her mug was everywhere I went. Unable to suppress my interest one evening, I asked my mom about her as we drove past the tall, imposing white bulk on Canley Road on which her largest visage could be found.
Margie: (pointing) Who’s that woman? What does she mean? What’s her secret? Do you know her secret?
Mom looks at Victoria and takes a long pause before answering.
Mom: That’s Victoria. She works for a motel.
Margie: A motel? What’s a motel? Is that like a hotel?
Mom: Yes. It’s like a hotel.
Margie: Why is it different?
Mom: Well, um. Well, a motel is smaller. And people don’t stay very long.
Margie: Wooooooowwww. Okay. So it’s like a mini-hotel? Mini-hotel? Motel?
Mom: Um, yes.
Margie:: (eyes growing larger) Woooooowwww. Okay.
A few moments of silence ensue.
Margie: (with tingling, tight-fisted resolve) One day, I’m going to stay at a motel.
After that magical mother-daughter moment, the only other time I felt that same pure sense of fascination was around two months ago, as I passed the same branch on the way to work. While the building maintained its height, bulk, pallor, and air of secrecy, it now has a billboard on which its latest features are advertised. Everyone already knows of the Matrix Room, the Austin Powers Party Room, the Oval Office Room, etc. and has remarked on them with that mixture of fear and delight characteristic of motel-related commentary. So I won’t go into those anymore. What I will bring up—with unadulterated admiration—is its latest ad.
It is for their Plain White Rice. It is quite minimalist, with a picture of plain white rice in a black lacquer bowl. I can’t remember the exact copy on it, but it’s something like Victoria Court’s Plain White Rice. Taste the Distinction.
Now, I have never been big on plain white rice and, until I saw this genius of a billboard, thought that I never will. But that ad is mesmerizing, damn it. How can anyone not desire a taste of this wondrous enigma? No other food enterprise, let alone motel chain, has dared to extol the excellence—the plainness! the whiteness!—of this modest, ubiquitous, staple tummy-filler! Dear god! It boggles my mind and my palate! Even though I’m pretty damn sure it’ll taste as inconsequential as any other bowl of plain white rice anywhere else, I still can’t help but play the impressionable consumer. To call attention to something so laughably unworthy of attention is brilliant. It makes you wonder what the whole deal is, makes you want to drive all the way up that steep ramp, slip into the next room, grab the phone and scream for A BOWL OF YOUR PLAIN WHITE RICE, PLEASE, YES, THANK YOU AND HURRY, DAMN IT, HURRY. HURRY. (Who has time to fuck, honey, when this establishment offers the most unbelievably distinct bowls of Plain White Rice in the known universe? So stop whining. Get off me. The rice is coming. Go play with the light knobs.)
So thank you, Victoria, for giving my sense of inquisitiveness some exercise. It has been a pleasure pondering over you and the highlights of your business, and I look forward to more of your splendor in future encounters.
posted by marguerite @ 12:48 AM
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